The love for Rhythm & Blues and Soul, the styles of music mostly appreciated by Mario, took him to listen to a certain music repertoire, in particular some of the most representative related artists (Earth Wind & Fire, Donny Hattaway. Billy Paul, Luther Vandross, Lou Rawls, Aretha Franklin, Eryka Badu, Will Dowing,...).
When the producer and Mario decided together the repertoire to be performed, Mario doubted he might be able to reproduce stylistically songs of the classic American repertoire such as "Slow Hot Wind" and "On A Clear Day", or even "A Handful Of Soul". The result instead is stunning...
In this album, not only he delivers a very convincing interpretation but his voice adds a different colour to the music in "Slow Hot Wind" as well as in "A handful of Soul". The feel-good sensation spread in "On A Clear Day(..)" is certainly enhanced by the deep husky voice of the interpreter. Mario himself remained pleasantly astonished by his own familiarity with those tunes. The inspiration he got from singing them moved himself, along with the other co-authors, to lay down the track "Gig", clearly of American derivation, Cole Porter style.
In the past few years Mario collaborated with Alessandro Magnanini (Was-A-Bee), multi-faced musician as well as excellent arranger. With Alessandro, Mario co-wrote two authentic gems "No Mercy For Me" and "This Is What You Are". The latter was released as single and licensed on various compilations, gaining enough success. Whilst "No Mercy For Me" reveals Mario's true soul of a crooner, "This Is What You Are" went on air in U.K.on heavy rotation in Norman Jay's program Giant 45 for BBC London. Whereas in Italy was programmed by RMC and later became the music to the network's corporate TV commercial. Another unreleased track is "Never Die", wrote by Marco Bianchi (already part of duo Fedreghini-Bianchi, as well as The Invisible Session), produced on the blueprint of "This is What You Are" yet a fine piece of vocal jazz with fascinating harmonies and captivating solos.
Tributes to rock-blues, soul-blues and rhythm-blues follow respectively in the shape of "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometime" by Al Kooper, a ū on the trail of Deirdre Wilson Tabac where Mario's soulful passionate signing shines throughout the song; "I'm Her Daddy" originally by the one and only Bill Withers and "No Trouble on The Mountain" by L.C Cook, another marvellous tune convincingly covered by Mario's unique voice.
Quite interesting is the version he sang of "A Child Runs Free" a modern Bossa in perfect Schema style, just like the samba "Rio De Janeiro Blue".
